


Delirium

by StrangeMischief



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2020-10-26 10:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeMischief/pseuds/StrangeMischief
Summary: There was enough water for five days, and Tony had twice torn the ship apart in desperate search of Stephen and the butterfly.





	Delirium

**Author's Note:**

> As always, enjoy :3

_ Delirium _

The food was gone. He had already spread the lacking supplies thin, and he had the decaying body to prove it. His muscle mass had all but vanished, his face was gaunt, and focusing on anything for more than a handful of seconds required monumental effort. Yes, malnourishment was unkind to Tony Stark, but it was currently the least of his worries.

While Tony didn’t enjoy starvation, it was a circumstance he had experienced before, and he knew he could struggle through again if need be. But, if the blinking gauge on the ship’s console meant what he thought it meant, there was about two weeks of oxygen left.

Tony could fight off hunger. He could muddle through dehydration. But a lack of oxygen was an obstacle that even he couldn’t overcome. And, as the lonely days drifting aimlessly through space continued to pass, it was one he grew more and more wary of facing head-on.

But giving up wasn’t an option. Tony needed to get back. He needed to get _them _back. Who knew what remained of the Avengers back on Earth? What if he were the last one left? What if he were the only left who could fight for the fallen?

No, he could make it. The five days’ supply of water could easily be stretched out into ten. Four days without water and dwindling oxygen was a stretch, but hopefully, he would land someplace, preferably Earth, by then.

Two weeks. It should have been comforting to know he could still have so much time, but Tony found the idea was absolutely terrifying. Two more weeks in the cold. Two more weeks in the dark. Two more weeks with nothing to occupy him but his own bleak, twisted thoughts. Two more weeks of his mind running in endless circles of, _“What if? What if? What if?_”

The next two weeks would be cruel.

\---

There was enough water for eight days, and Tony had never felt so alone. He yearned for the touch of something rather than metallic flooring or worn leather seats. How many days had it been since he had gripped Stephen’s forearm? How much time had stretched between now and when he held Peter’s crumbling figure in his arms? How many days had passed since last time anyone, _anything, _alive had been close enough to touch? Too many to count, Tony decided.

His need to get back to _somewhere _only grew more frantic. He needed affirmation that someone other than him existed in the endless span of universe before him. That this wasn’t some sick joke where Thanos had obliterated the half of existing life that was within Tony’s reach. But the further the ship drifted into deep space, the more accepting of his solitude, and his likely lonely demise, Tony became.

\---

There was enough water for seven days, and Tony had grown so used to his unmoving surroundings that his heart nearly jumped from his chest when he saw something move in his peripheral vision.

It was a pale, powder blue and it’s thin, fluttering wings carried it through the air in smooth, sweeping arcs. A butterfly. On a ship. In space. The image stirred a haze image from the part of his mind still whirling to process the events of Titan. He could recall Thanos drawing on the power of the gauntlet, his vivid purple blast aimed at…_Stephen. _

Tony scrambled from his seat and darted across the room, feeling more energized than he had in weeks. His thoughts were scattered, tainted with hundreds of hopeful possibilities that he flicked through quickly, trying to settle on the most probably one.

Had Stephen managed to somehow magic himself back into reality? Did he have Peter too? Had he sent the butterfly as a message? Would it somehow guide Tony to a nearby planet? _Was Stephen here?_ Had he come for Tony, a portal ready to whisk him back home? Would the crushing weight of isolation finally, _finally, _end?

The butterfly rounded a corner and disappeared from sight, striking icy cold fear into Tony’s heart. He couldn’t have missed his only chance. He _couldn’t. _ “Stephen?” he shouted, his voice echoing as it carried through the empty ship. “_Stephen!_”

\---

There was enough water for five days, and Tony had twice torn the ship apart in desperate search of Stephen and the butterfly. He ripped paneling from the walls and flipped bins over and kicked their contents across the room. He flung clothing from wardrobes and popped the steel grates from the floor to peer desperately into the abyss of wires and piping below.

The, admittedly shrinking, part of Tony’s mind that was still rational whispered that the butterfly hadn’t been real, that Stephen wasn’t coming. But that didn’t stop him from wanting it to be true, and for clinging to hope where hope was lost.

He had been seconds away from flipping a workbench across the room when he saw it again – a delicate powder blue butterfly, gently flapping its wings. It was perched on a shelf Tony had previously pushed over, enchanted wings illuminating the dark room in pale silver hues.

The frenzied panic that had engulfed him drained quickly, replaced by calming waves of relief. “You’re here,” Tony sighed in relief, his thin, trembling fingers closed the distance between him the butterfly before halting, a hair’s width away from the creature’s brilliant, glowing wings. The idea of another living thing, something he could _touch _being so close was enough to make Tony feel euphoric. But, as his hand hovered over the creature, hesitation swirled within him.

The need to feel something was so all-consuming Tony was certain it would be what finally drove him over the edge. But, the idea of his hand passing through the insect, reaffirming that it was no more than a delusion, and crushing the small inkling of hope he’d gained, was chilling. He’d go back to being alone; resigned of his deteriorating state of being.

Tony dropped his hand and crouched down, so he was eye level with his tiny lifeline. “Don’t leave me again,” he softly demanded, not bothering to conceal the need in his voice. “I can’t…Please-please just stay, little buddy.”

\---

There was enough water for four days, and he’d already grown used to the familiar sight of the violet, azure, and teal colored butterflies. Their tiny figures flitted just outside the ship windows as they weaved around in a secret dance which only they knew. Their glowing wings shone brightly from the ceiling as Tony tossed restlessly down below. Their thin antenna twitched in tempo while he softly sang his mother’s favorite show tunes while staring passively out the front window. 

The beautiful insects were always present, and it came to a point where Tony expected them to be there when he woke and would seek them out when they seemed to disappear into thin air.

However, as friendly as the fluttering creatures were, they never touched him. Dearly as Tony wanted to, he never touched them either. He was becoming increasingly aware of how long it’d been since he’d had physical contact with something, _anything _that had life in it.

It was tempting, oh so _very _tempting, to brush his fingers against something else that was alive. But Tony couldn’t risk them not being real. He couldn’t risk them crumbled away as his fingers slid through their ghostly bodies. He couldn’t risk the delusion ending.

Tony couldn’t risk being alone again.

\---

There was enough water for three days, and it was the first time it happened. Perhaps it was the hunger. Maybe it was the building desperation for human contact. Most likely it was the overwhelming madness of the solitude.

Tony had trailed mindlessly after an eagerly flapping butterfly, none too keen on letting it out of his sights, despite the creature already having lingered near his shoulder a majority of the day. He half-watched the creature flit about, skimming over a stack of long empty food cartons, drifting by roughly built long-distance radios that had been abandoned weeks ago, nestling in wavy chestnut hair.

Tony stopped and stared in disbelief.

It was Peter. Peter unscathed. Peter whole. Peter smiling while wearing jeans and his favorite blue sweater. He was seated on the floor, legs crossed in his lap, and a battered yellow backpack open at his side as he flipped casually through a physics textbook. 

Tony’s heart stopped. His mind froze. His knees gave.

A bony hand shot out to dig into the wall in an effort to steady himself, but Tony had already fallen too far and hit the floor with his hands and knees. The grating that made up the flooring scrapped painfully at his palms, and he heard his already battered jogging pants tear as they snagged on the jagged surface.

It hurt, but not enough to deter him from crawling forward, a frantic glint in his eye. _Please be here. Please be real._

“Peter?” Tony croaked thickly, hauling himself closer to the kid. His throat was already tight with emotion, and his eyes burned with unshed tears. _Please be here. Please be real._ “Peter is that you?”

Peter’s head tilted up, innocent brown eyes shining enthusiastically. He smiled invitingly but said nothing in response to Tony’s pleading questions. It was so _Peter. _He _had _to be here. He _had _to be real.

Tony lunged forward, eager to yank the kid into his arms, forgetting his own rule of engagement with possible illusions. _Don’t touch. Never touch._

His thin hand shot out, sweeping straight through Peter’s leg. _He wasn’t here. _Peter crumbled out of existence at Tony’s touch, eliciting a sharp, pained sound from the man. _He wasn’t real. _Nothing, not the book, not the backpack, not even ashy flakes were left in the teen’s wake. It was as if he had never been there to start as if he never existed.

“No, no, no, no, _no!_” Tony cried, clawing hysterically at the empty spot where Peter had been. “I’m sorry! Pete, please! I’m so sorry! I won’t do it again!” His chest tightened, and his breathing became dangerously shallow as panic wrapped around him with an iron grip. “Come back,” Tony pleaded, as he pulled roughly at his shirt collar. “Don’t leave me again. Please don’t leave me here.”

But Peter didn’t come back, and Tony spent the rest of the night curled in on himself as silent tears dripped onto the grate below.

\---

There was enough water for two days, and Tony hadn’t moved from the floor where he’d fallen the day before. He was to busy staring at the spot where Peter had vanished. He had cried. He had begged. He had _prayed_, but it was all for naught.

And so, Tony remained unmoving on the floor, and would have continued as such had there not been movement in his peripheral.

The butterfly soared across the room to land on the shaking outstretched finger of a tall, shadowy figure, and Tony nearly smashed his head into a pile of unsalvageable scrap metal trying to track the movement.

Blue wings flapped in what could only be called excitement, as the imposing figure drifted forward. His red cloak barely brushed the floor as he strode towards Tony, his alluring sea-green gaze easily capturing Tony’s undivided attention.

_Stephen. _He had come. He was here.

His mouth opened, and Tony winced at the dry, cotton-ball feeling that coated his mouth. The combination of only allowing himself a few mouthfuls of water a day and his relentless sobbing the night before had taken a toll on his already struggling body. “Stephen?” he managed to rasp. “Are-are you really here?”

Stephen sunk down to the floor, not far from where Peter had sat the day before and arched a brow as he smiled warmly. The air seemed to shift around him, and faint traces of toasted bread and peppermints swirled through the stuffy cabin.

Tony felt the little moisture in his mouth go dry.

It was a delusion, he decided instantly. Such a smile was so unearthly it verged on mythical. It simply couldn’t be produced by any mortal being. Just like the preceding appearances – the butterflies and Peter – this too was an illusion.

An illusion that Tony wanted to stay.

There was no harm in it, Tony rationalized. It wouldn’t hurt to have Stephen near. The butterflies hadn’t done him any worse. If anything, they were the only reasons Tony had any sanity to cling to. No, there was nothing wrong with wanting Stephen to stay.

There was nothing wrong with wanting Stephen to continue looking at him with that smile.

\---

The water had run out today. There were four days of oxygen left, and the air had already become noticeably thinner.

Tony’s mouth was parched, he was a bit light-headed, and each breath he drew felt like swallowing wet concrete. It was miserable. Miserable, and, yet, Tony hadn’t knelt over clutching his chest in all-consuming panic as he had imagined he would.

He was too busy struggling through a weakly sung rendition of _Rocket Man _to Peter, soothed by the teen’s adolescent groans of distaste. He was too captivated by Stephen’s figure lounging in the background, lazily rolling his wrist as an amethyst colored butterfly scurried around his hand while fixing Tony with a flustering gaze. 

It was madness, letting mirages consume him one delightful bite at a time. It was unhealthy. It was _wrong. _But Tony couldn’t bring himself to care. Whether or not he died alone was completely up to him, and he much rather go surrounded by Peter’s youthful chuckle and Stephen’s bewitching smile than alone in dark, cold silence.

\---

The water had been gone for two days, and there were two days of oxygen left.

Two days without water, and yet Tony felt as if he’d been lying flat on the cockpit’s floor for months, wasting away into nothingness. Everything ached. Everything burned. For a short period of time, the chill of the ship’s metal floor brought him some comfort, but it had long since faded.

Peter sat diligently above him in the pilot's chair, watching silently with sorrow-filled eyes as he gnawed anxiously on his lower lip. Stephen sat cross-legged at Tony’s side, his fingers twisting feverishly in his boot’s lacings as his sea-green eyes watched each rise and fall of Tony’s chest with rapt attention. A trio of indigo butterflies were perched on the ship’s console, their radiant wings flashing a deep eggplant sheen with each blink of the low oxygen warning light.

The realization that he was likely reaching the end hit Tony full force for the first time, and he nearly broke down at the brutality of it all. He had already lost so much. Sacrificed more than his share. Gone to lengths he never thought he’d have to. And yet, here he was on death’s doorstep with nothing, but his mind’s own conjuring’s to keep him company.

Tony turned his face towards the window, his watery eyes blurring the beauty of the cosmos into a twisted purple mess. He rolled his cheek into his shoulder, ignored Stephen’s somber reflection watching him mournfully, and drew his knees closer to his chest. His lips twitched in barely noticeable movements as he mouthed a hazily-remembered lullaby Jarvis had been fond of, grateful it still managed to lull him into blissful slumber after all this time.

\---

Tony had lost count of how many days the water had been gone. He’d lost count of everything. His mind was busy ordering his body to continue breathing.

He felt like Sisyphus, cursed to endlessly pushing a boulder up the mountain. Each raspy labored inhale received the full force of what little strength he had left. His eyes watered with pain as he forced the feeble remnants of muscle in his diaphragm to expand, desperate to draw down ever wisp of air that was still left. Yet, much like Sisyphus’ boulder nearing the mountaintop, Tony’s agonizing efforts would be naught. The air drawn in would barely filter down his aching throat before his chest sagged, pushing the much-needed oxygen back out.

It should have been infuriating, but Tony didn’t have the energy to be angry. He was too hungry. Too thirsty. Too tired. All he wanted one good lung-full of air and to slip off into the more forgiving reality he conjured in his dreams.

Something turquoise drifted past Tony’s hazy line of sight, and he immediately turned his head. His gaze met a familiar set of boots and Tony couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief that it was Stephen and not Peter that had come. He didn’t think he could bare Peter, real or not, watching him struggle through his final breaths in this godforsaken hellhole.

“Hi,” Tony greeted the sorcerer in a faint whisper, his eyelids drooping. Sleep pulled at him insistently, but Tony resisted. He wasn’t ready. Not yet. Stephen had just come back to him.

“Hi.”

The honey-coated baritone shattered through the silence and ripped the little air Tony had managed to capture straight from his lungs as he jerked at the word. Peter and Stephen had appeared for over a week, and neither had either spoken a single word. Peter had laughed a few times, and Stephen frequently huffed in annoyance, but the pair, much like the butterflies that accompanied them, seldom made a sound.

“Stephen?” Tony whispered breathlessly, greedily drinking in the man’s appearance. “Are you here?”

Stephen smiled and fluidly knelt down at Tony’s side. “Of course I am.”

“How long?” Tony croaked. His vision blurred as he struggled to find the air needed to speak. “How-how long can you stay?”

“I’ll be here,” Stephen reassured him, his voice like a balm to Tony’s ravaged soul. “As long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here.”

Tony’s lip twitched in a weak semblance of a smile as his eyes finally dropped closed. Unconsciousness wrapped him in its steel embrace, lulling him away from thoughts of laughs and huffs and butterflies, and closer to enticing dreams of intoxicating smiles and the peculiar yet comforting smell of mint and freshly baked bread. And as he slipped away, Tony wonder, not for the first time, if he would wake again in the morning, or if this would be his last moment of life.

But, as butterflies and smooth baritone lingered in the forefront of Tony’s mind, he decided that this moment would not be a terrible one to have as his last.

\---

_Has he always looked like this?_

_No. The Man of Iron is a mighty human of great strength. Where is the air mask?_

_Right, here-Wait! Don’t jostle him that much! Poor thing’s ribs could slice clean through his skin._

_Of course. My apologies, old friend. Breathe easy, now. Lady Danvers and I shall see you home. The Boy of Spiders eagerly awaits your return, with your grumpy witch at his side._

_\---_

Tony’s eyes opened to darkness. That much he was accustomed to by now. But that was just about the only thing familiar about his surroundings.

The darkness here was consuming. No twinkling stars shone out fogged windows. Not a single shimmering galaxy glittered in the distance. It was deathly silent. He couldn’t pick out the faint hum of the ship’s engine or the intermittent moan of weakened metal shifting. There were cool, clean sheets below him and a feather-light duvet on top of him. The scent of toasted bread and mint lingered in the air, and Tony could help but feel as if he’d smelt the strange combination somewhere before.

Tony shifted himself upward and repositioned the pillows, so he was reclining, rather than lying prone on the bed. Though it was still too dark to truly determine where he was, his eyes had adjusted enough to see to the foot of the bed, where…_Peter?_

Peter was sprawled out at the bottom of the bed wearing the Hello Kitty pajama bottoms and ‘I survived New York’ t-shirt Tony had bought him what felt like ages ago. His face was relaxed, and a soft snore rose from his sleeping figure with each rise of his chest. The teen’s lanky limbs were spread wide across the foot of the bed, his arms dangling over the edge of the mattress, and his socked feet tucked into the crook of Tony’s arm.

Tony stared.

They were feet. Peter’s feet. And he could _feel _them. He could feel _everything_. The roughly spun cotton felt coarse against his skin. The bony feeling of Peter’s ankles pushing into his skeletal arms. The periodic twitch of the teen’s toes as he tossed in his sleep, a grunt of irritation breaking through his consistent pattern of snores.

Tony jerked up, ready to fly across the bed and crush the kid to his chest, but a hand shot out and pushed against his shoulder, preventing him from moving too far. “I know it’s confusing, but you need to stay still Tony,” a soft voice reprimanded lightly. “You’ll rip out all the monitors and IVs again.”

Tony twisted his head and peered into the dark that absorbed the bedside. He could just barely make out the outline of the tall figure perched in a large wingback chair. A large swath of fabric was draped over the back, and the bottom corner stretched out on its own accord, seeming to want to touch Tony’s arm when long, scarred fingers reached out and swatted the material back.

_Stephen._

“Hi?” Tony gasped in a questioning tone. His voice was raspy disuse, and the single word pulled roughly at his dry throat.

“Hi,” Stephen whispered back, moving closer. His eyes wide and glistened with a cross of hope and disbelief. His hand curled into Tony’s shoulder a bit tighter as he leant in, squinting through the dark to critically look over Tony’s face. “You’re awake this time? Fully?”

“You’re real?” Tony asked, rather than answering Stephen’s question. He sounded hopelessly broken and on the verge of crying in desperation but didn’t care. He needed this to be real. He needed _Stephen _to be real.

“I-Yes,” Stephen chuckled lightly, a small grin quirking across his face. “Yes, I’m real.”

Panic flickered through Tony at the sorcerer’s breathtaking smile, and he couldn’t tramp down the need to latch onto the other man and prove to himself that it wasn’t an illusion. He reached out with a violently quivering hand and hesitantly brushed over the hand on his shoulder, letting out a small cry of relief when his fingertips slid over warm, rough, _real _skin.

Tony sobbed, loudly and shamelessly, and wound his fingers around Stephen’s, locking their hands together. Relief into him, one comforting wave after another, and washed away the toxic cocktail of morose loneliness that he’d drowned in for so long. Tony pulled their joined hands to his chest, clinging to Stephen like a lifeline as he mumbled broken, incoherent phrases through his tears, his thoughts too jumbled to string together a lucid sentence.

Stephen was _real. _Stephen had smiled and was still real. Stephen was real, Peter was real, and he was…somewhere other than on that ship alone. The knowledge was so overwhelming that Tony hardly knew what to feel. This was it. His deliverance. His _salvation. _

The stream of tears continued to rush down Tony’s gaunt cheeks, and Stephen nervously reached out to wipe the wet streaks away, looking of whether his touch helped or hindered Tony. 

“You’ll still stay with me?” Tony begged, more than asked. His grip on Stephen tightened, the fear of the man vanishing still lingering. “You won’t leave me again?”

A flash of confusion drifted across Stephen’s face, but he made no remark on Tony’s odd remark. “Of course, Tony.” He reached out with his free hand and gently untangled the jumble of wires and tubing that ran into and around Tony’s arm and neck with almost tender care. “I’ll stay. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll stay.”

Tony sagged back against the pillows, the few short moments he had been awake enough to drain him of the little energy he had regained. “I’m glad it was you,” he mumbled, images of heart-melting smiles and sapphire butterflies drifting through his already half-asleep mind. “It was always you.”

Vaguely, Tony registered Stephen’s grip tightening around his hand. “It was always you,” Stephen agreed.

Tony hummed, content, and drifted off, the comforting weight of interlaced hands resting on his chest until morning.


End file.
